“Yes, sir, I'm sure you could,” Jimmie replied gratefully; and what little expression there was in his face said plainly enough, “Don't I know how you have helped me?” And then he added in eagerness to assist, “I could stop at the box-factory, if you like, and see if he ain't working any more.”
“All right, I wish you would. Tell us about it Monday at class. That's all.”
At this Jimmie got soberly down from the chair and went out, leaving Miss Davies and Halloran to look at each other expressively.
“Well, what do you think?” said she.
“He is going straight to warn him. Something is the matter. We must try his mother now. And we ought to do it quickly—before Monday.” Miss Davies mused for a moment. “We could hardly get there to-night—we might go to-morrow afternoon, when she gets back from her work. I will arrange to have dinner here.”
Halloran nodded; and they returned to the hall. Jimmie was dancing again when they reached the parlour door, to music by one of the resident teachers who had volunteered to take the place of Miss Davies. Apples had disappeared and Lizzie Bigelow also. Miss Davies looked around for them; then, realizing after a moment that Jimmie's feet were not the only ones that were stepping in time to the music, she glanced up the stairway. A laugh from the upper hall and the fling of a skirt at the head of the stairs brought a puzzled expression to her face. But the explanation came in a moment. Just as Jimmie stopped dancing and was turning toward the hall, Apples came running down the stairs, a cane in his hand, and after him Lizzie Bigelow, laughing, nearly breathless, and with a heightened colour.
“Oh, Miss Davies,” Apples exclaimed with all his good-natured assurance on the surface, “Miss Bigelow and I are going to do a cake-walk, and we want you to play for us—a good, lively march, with a lot of jump in it.”
Miss Davies looked at him surprised, then at Lizzie; finally, in distress, she turned to Halloran. But he found nothing to say. Before Miss Davies could collect her wits and think of some excuse Apples was blundering on.
“Play the one you did for the boy—that'll do splendidly. We've been practising up-stairs, and it goes mighty well. We'd better do it now, before we get our steps mixed. Miss Bigelow says she'd rather do this than the song she is down to sing—didn't you?” he added, appealing to her.
She assented rather shamefacedly, and Miss Davies gave up. There was no rule against cakewalks, and she herself had invited Le Duc to entertain the boys and girls; so she concealed her dislike for this juvenile way of overstepping boundaries and went to the piano. Halloran was downright sorry for her, but he did not see what he could do..
Halloran foresaw that it might be late Saturday evening before Miss Davies and he could return to Evanston, so he arranged with another member of the crew to stand his watch from ten to midnight; and then, knowing nothing of what might be before them, these two young people set out on their search for George.
Picture a tenement far out on the North Side, one of thousands of smoke-coloured buildings, somewhere on an obscure street that was discouragingly like dozens of other streets. Without the tenement an electric light (for it was six o'clock and dark on this autumn day) threw its flare on an uneven cedar-block pavement, worn into ruts and holes that had given up, hopeless of repair, to mud and filth; on obscure little tailor shops and masquerade-costume shops, and dirty tobacco shops with windows hung full of questionable prints; on an itinerant popcorn-and-peanut man, who had stationed his glass-enclosed cart on the corner and was himself sitting on the curbstone, the picture of disgust with life; on a prosperous red-brick corner building, that shed light and comfort from half a dozen broad windows, announcing itself by its curtained inner door and its black-and-gilt signs to be Hoffman's sample room. So much for the neighbourhood. Within the tenement, up three flights of stairs, was an apartment of two rooms where lived Mrs. Craig with her daughter and her son, who bore the name of Bigelow.
Lizzie was sewing: her mother, back home for supper in the intermission between the work of afternoon and evening, was taking off her hat.
“Is the fire going, Lizzie?”
The girl shook her head without looking up. “How did I know you were coming home so early?”
“It is six o'clock.”
“Well, how do you suppose I'm ever going to get my work done if I have to make fires for you? Where's George, I'd like to know! That's his business, anyway.”
Mrs. Craig, herself wondering where George was, went to the next room and built the fire herself.
A few moments later Halloran knocked at the door, and Miss Davies and he were admitted. And while Miss Davies was opening the subject, trying with the utmost delicacy to obtain the confidence of this woman, trying to show by simple, honest words how sincerely she and Halloran were interested in George, another boy, a small, wizened-faced boy with thin legs, was hiding in a doorway across the street, watching with keen little eyes for their exit and pondering with a keen little mind on their probably next move.
Miss Davies was beginning to wonder if she had not overestimated the difficulty of talking with Mrs. Craig. Or was it the present topic that made it a little easier? For she had come now with no offers of food, or coal for the fires; but only to talk about George, to see if she and the young man with her might not, by giving their time and interest, make the search easier. And the main difficulty seemed now to be that the woman knew no more about it than they did.
“It was early last week,” she explained, speaking quietly, in a voice that had been brought to a dead level by habitual restraint. “He went off to work as usual, after dinner, and said he would be back to supper. I don't know where he can be. He has never been a bad boy.”
Lizzie, now that so much trouble was going on about George, began to feel unusually sorrowful herself—was even moved to tears, and had to go into the other room and bustle about getting supper ready before she could bring her feelings under control.
“Mr. Halloran thought the best thing would be to go out and search for him,” said Miss Davies. “And he thought you could help—:—” She turned to him and finished by saying, “Won't you explain to Mrs. Craig?”
“Can you tell us,” he responded, “of some place in the neighbourhood that George has been in the habit of going to—some place where he has friends?”
Mrs. Craig shook her head. “No; when he was not working he was almost always at home.”
“But he surely had acquaintances. You see, Mrs. Craig, we must have some place to start from.”
She thought for a moment. “No; so far as I know, there was only one man in the neighbourhood who took the least interest in him. And he wouldn't know anything about this. We have not lived here so very long———”
“Who is this man?”
“Mr. Hoffman, on the corner. He has been kind to George, once or twice.”
Halloran rose, saying aside to Miss Davies, “I will speak to him and come back here,” and went out.
He found a stout German behind the bar in the corner saloon who proved, upon inquiry, to be Hoffman himself. He was a substantial sort of man, speaking excellent English, and representing, if one could judge from the neat, well-stocked bar, the clean floor, the geraniums in the windows, and the general air of thrift and order, what he might have been pleased to call a decent saloon. Halloran began without preliminary by asking Hoffman if he knew George Bigelow.
The saloon-keeper rested both hands on the bar and looked across it, scrutinizing him closely before answering.
“Yes, there is a boy of that name around here.”
“He disappeared from home last week and his family are worried about him. I have been told that you might help me find him.”
Hoffman shook his head, still watching him closely. “No,” he said; “I know nothing about him.”
“Has he been about here at all lately?”
“No; it is two weeks since I saw him.”
The honest German face had the word suspicion plainly written on it, Halloran saw that he was not getting at the man at all, so he leaned on the bar and explained himself.
“I have come from the University Settlement. George has been at class there regularly until lately. His teachers believe in him and want to help him. They are afraid now that he has got into trouble and is afraid to come back. Do you know anything about it?”
For reply Hoffman asked:
“What is your name?”
“Halloran.”
“You come from the Settlement?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen Mrs. Craig?”
“I have just come from there. Miss Davies, George's teacher, is with her now.”
The big man slowly turned it over in his mind. Finally he said:
“I will tell you all I know, but it is not very much. There is another little boy named McGinnis who is around with him most of the time. The McGinnis boy worked at the ball park until the season closed last week. For ten days now he has been coming here for a glass of beer pretty often, and he always carries away the lunch. You say you want to help George?”
Halloran nodded.
“Well, I will tell you what I think.” He used the word “think,” but his expression showed that he knew pretty nearly the facts. “McGinnis has an uncle, a boat-builder, who has a place under the Wells Street Bridge. You go down there and you will learn more than I can tell you.”
Halloran thanked him and returned to Miss Davies, Mrs. Craig, he found, was getting ready to go back to work. They were all waiting anxiously for him.
“I think we are started right,” he said cheerily, addressing the mother. “I will be back later in the evening and report progress.” To Miss Davies he said: “You would rather wait at the Settlement, I suppose. I shan't be back probably before eight or nine o'clock.”
“Why,” she said in a low voice as they were passing out the door, “don't you want me to go with you?”
“I am afraid not. I could hardly take you prowling around the wharves at night.” And he told her, as they went down the stairs behind Mrs. Craig, what directions the saloon-keeper had given him. They were still talking about it when they joined the woman on the sidewalk; and then the three of them walked together to the second corner, talking it over and over again. For Mrs. Craig was beginning to discover that the young people were downright interested in her and in her boy. There was no gracious down-reaching here, no lending a kind hand to the unfortunate; but just a young woman who believed she could help, and a young man who knew a little of what it all meant; in short, here were two real persons who said little and meant more. She was not afraid, as she looked at them, that they would pray for her, loudly and zealously, kneeling on the floor of her own tenement rooms. And she was inclined to wonder, looking out at them across her own sea of troubles, what life was to hold for them.
Something of this last thought got into her manner as she took their hands at parting; indeed, her reserve so nearly broke that she gave them—not singly, but the two of them together—a look that brought a faint blush to the young woman's cheek and to her mind other thoughts than George and his difficulties—-thoughts that disturbed her a little later when she and Halloran were walking toward the Settlement, so foolish and trivial were they beside the realities of the scene that had passed—thoughts that were resolutely put from her mind.
At the Settlement steps she lingered a moment.
“I wish I were going with you,” she said, hesitating. “There is pride in the family, and George has his share of it. If you—if he should think you blamed him or looked down on him, he would never come back with you. He has always been hard to reach, and I think it is because of a rough sort of sensitiveness.”
Was it unreasonable that she should wish to continue handling this case, just now when tact was so urgently needed? Or that she should give Halloran a hint of the best course to take with the boy?
“I don't blame him,” he replied. “The way to help him is to make him feel like somebody. If you once let him get to thinking that he is good for nothing he'll run down hill fast. Jimmie McGinnis, now, will take all the knocks you can give him, and go right on turning his pennies; he will be in the City Council yet.”
She nodded, for she saw that he understood. And he turned away to begin the search, walking over to the car-line. As he sat down in the first trailer a small boy ran alongside the rear car and swung himself aboard, hurriedly drawing in a pair of thin legs after him.
Through gloomy Kinzie Street walked Halloran, when he had reached the river district, and after him, half a block or more, came the thin legs. He got to the bridge by the Northwestern Station, crossed over, and looked around for a means of descent to the wharves. After a moment he saw in the shadow of a brick building—a building that was a South Water Street market in front, a factory in the upper half and a tug-office behind—what seemed to be a break in the railing. He crossed to it and found, sure enough, a narrow stairway, covered with mud and slime, leading down toward the oily surface of the river. It was curious—he had crossed the bridge a hundred times, but it had never occurred to him that there was any life below the street, that men came and went down there on the strip of wharf, so narrow that it seemed little more than a fender for the buildings that backed on the river. Picking his way carefully to avoid slipping, he walked down.
Not far away, in the basement of one of these buildings, was a sailors' grog-shop: hardly three rods from the bridge-walk, even in sight from it, yet so quietly tucked away below story on story of brick building, behind half a dozen smoking tugs, in a spot where no sober doorway, no saloon doorway even, had a right to be—so hidden, in fact, that not half a dozen of the tens of thousands of people on the bridge daily had ever observed it. It was a wonder how a drunken man could ever get out through the door without falling into the river—perhaps one did fall now and then. There was music in the saloon now—a squeaking fiddle and loud noises.
Beyond, the river was splashed with red and white and green from lanterns and side-lights; and a dozen masts, their spars and rigging apparently interlaced, were outlined against the western sky. At the moment a big freighter, bound out, was headed for the draw, forging slowly and almost silently down the sluggish stream, passing along like some dim modern Flying Dutchman. Above, on the bridge, cars were rumbling and footsteps were pattering—the feet of the late suburbanites hurrying to their trains. All Chicago was alive and bustling above him and around him; but here, at the end of a crooked passage, was a quiet spot—a shop filled with boats, completed and uncompleted; and sprawled on his stomach behind one of the boats, a cigarette in his mouth, an Old Sleuth story spread on the boards before him, a candle stuck in a beer bottle at his elbow, was a boy, who was trying to believe that he was, in spite of cold feet and sniffling nose, really tough and comfortable.
“Well, George,” said Halloran, “how's business?”
George started, turned pale, and hastily took the cigarette from his mouth; then remembering his independence, he as hastily put it back. Halloran sat down on the stem of a ship's boat and filled his pipe.
“Miss Davies and I heard you were in hard luck,” he went on, “and I thought I'd look you up and see what's the matter.”
George had not been able to speak until now. He sat up, pulled doggedly a moment at his cigarette, and said in a very sulky tone:
“Who told you I was here?”
Halloran would have been glad to answer him, but as it fell out no reply was necessary. For just as he was pausing to light his pipe a step was heard in the passage and a wizened-faced boy appeared in the outer circle of the candle-light.
It was Jimmie, eyeing Halloran with distrust, glancing apologetically at George, more disturbed, in fact, than Halloran had yet seen him. To him now George turned a reproachful face.
“I never done it, George,” said Jimmie. “I'd a-busted first. He went around to old Hoffman and he put him onto my uncle. I see him go in there and I followed him up.”
“That's right, George,” Halloran put in by way of seconding Jimmie. “We couldn't get a word out of him. It was your mother that sent me to Hoffman. But I've come down to talk with you, and I'm not sorry that Jimmie is here. Now, what's the trouble? Tell me about it; and then I will see what we can do for you.”
The two boys looked at each other. George had been told so often by certain Settlement workers never to smoke, never to read bad books, never to be seen in company with beer bottles, he had supposed that of course these things would be the first subjects under discussion; and the omission disconcerted him. Jimmie, meanwhile, being the shrewder of the two, was signaling him to go ahead and spit it out. So he began, in a blundering, sullen sort of a way; stumbled, blushed and stopped. Finally Jimmie had to take it up.
“You see, it's just this way. George's folks was getting down pretty close to the boards, and they was the rent coming, and George he had his week's pay, but it wasn't enough, so I just told him”—very patronizing here, was Jimmie, as became a young capitalist who had once clasped the hand of Captain Anson—“I told him to give it to me and I'd put it up on the Washington game, with a little wad of my own. It was an easy mark, 'cause the Washingtons were tail-enders, and I had hold of their mascot, and he was willing to put up even. It was like taking the money out of his pocket, but a man can't throw away a chance like that—and then I'll be damned if Billy Connors didn't up and throw the game.”
“He's a hell of a pitcher,” was George's comment, spoken with a sidelong glance at Halloran.
“Never you mind,” said Jimmie, “Watson 'll never sign him again, after a trick like that.”
Rather an interesting situation this—an odd confusing of good motives with bad—an amusing symptom of good feeling in speculator Jimmie, to be taking up the support of a young man who had been ruined through his advice. He would doubtless get over it as he grew older. If every man were to feel the same responsibility, what a wreck it would make of our institutions! What a scrambling there would be in Wall Street, in La Salle Street! Incipient socialism this—a bad thing, very bad!
Halloran nodded and smiled a little. “I know,” he said. “We're all of us likely to fall down now and then. I don't know as I should have done just that, though. A man can't afford to gamble unless he can afford to lose; and there aren't many such men. I'm not sure there are any.” He smiled again—he knew just how George felt, just about what he was thinking behind that clouded face. “But now the question is, how are we going to fix you up again? You can't stay here. How much did you lose?”
Again it was Jimmie that answered, “Three fifty.”
Halloran thought for a moment, doing some sums in his head; then he took a purse from his pocket and counted out the money.
“Now, George,” he said, “this is a loan. I know you're square, and I'm willing to take your word for it. There is no hurry; but some day, when you feel you can, you may pay it back. We needn't either of us say anything about it.” George's expression was changing every moment; but he took the money. “Suppose we go back to the house now, George. You will find your mother and sister mighty glad to see you. And Miss Davies is waiting at the Settlement to hear about you. She has worried a good deal. Then Monday we will see if we can't get the factory to give you another trial.”
George's armour was not proof against such an attack as this. He got up, put the story in his pocket, and lighted Halloran and Jimmie along the passage with his candle; then he snuffed it out and put it in his pocket, threw the bottle into the river and followed the two others up the stairway to the street.
Bending over a book sat Halloran, both elbows on the table, the fingers of both hands run through his hair. The book lay open, and spread out on the leaves was a note from Miss Davies; in part this ran as follows:
“. . . George is to have another trial at the box-factory. They seem willing to be kind to him, but Mr. ———— says emphatically that he will not be taken back a second time. But I have confidence in him, and particularly in your influence.. . .
“I will tell you all about it when you next come up to the house. I am more grateful than you know—indeed, we all are—for your. . .”
Halloran had made a discovery. Had he been given to self-scrutiny it would have come earlier; and it would then have been a little easier to face. But this way of thinking would not help him now; it had not come earlier, it was difficult, and the question lay before him: should he make that next visit to the house or not?
He glanced up at his nickel alarm-clock and saw that it was time to go on watch; so he put on his sweater and oilskins and sou'wester, blew out his lamp and walked across the Sheridan road to the station.
It was nearly four years since he had taken care of the Davies's furnace and slept in their barn. That had been in his days of “subbing” for a crew position, and he had not been a boy even then; he had entered college at twenty-two. Since then, thanks to his salary as a surfman in the pay of the Treasury Department, he had got along rather better; he was no longer the traditional poor student. He was not ashamed of his struggles, nor especially proud of them; he was inclined to think that struggling is not in itself particularly commendable; that it is success that counts. He knew that Mrs. Davies and her daughter had followed his work with interest, and he was grateful for it. “Grateful!”—there was the word that he stuck at. For, after all, had there not been from the start an element of patronage in their kindness to him? “Kindness” another word that hurt.
Number Six was “punching” the watchman's clock that always hung just within the station door.
“Hallo,” he said to Halloran.
“Hallo.”
“Wet night.”
“Yes, rather.”
“Better keep an eye on that light off the long pier. She's running in pretty close, I think.”
“All right; good-night.”
Number Six disappeared in the dark of the road, bound for bed; and Halloran pulled his sweater up around his neck and fell to pacing the veranda. The surf was booming on the beach below; the rain was cutting in toward the land. Out beyond the breakers were lights—a line of them along the horizon.
The time had come to look ahead. In another six months his college course would be completed; his playtime would be over; realities lay beyond—downright realities that surround a man, that show clear through him, that bear him down and under unless he be made of stronger stuff than they. Wits were needed, and judgment; the determination that goes against things, not with them. There would be no making up of cuts, out there in the world, no special examinations; a man must look higher than the faculty there. Mistakes would be hard to rectify, perhaps could never be rectified, where a man was already nearer thirty than twenty. He decided not to make that next call.
The little city of Wauchung straggled over and between and almost burrowed under a chain of sand-hills—shining yellow hills with tops entirely bald save for a spear of rank grass here and there or a dwarfed pine. Outside the mouth of the river was Lake Michigan; behind the little city were the pine forests of the Lower Peninsula. And the one interesting object of this whole region was a man—for houses and shops were commonplace, streets were ill-paved, the railroad was wanting in energy and capital, the inhabitants were mostly leveled down to the colourless monotony of the sand-hills—a man named Martin L. Higginson.
There was one imposing building of granite and red bricks on the business street—a glance showed the name of Higginson over the entrance. Two large mills stood by the river, surrounded by piles of lumber on the land, fronted by rafts of logs in the water, sending out their droning hum all day long (and frequently all night long); inside, men were bustling and pushing in the effort to keep up with the drive of work outside, the long runways were active with men and with moving lumber—and on each of the mills was the name Higginson. Two steamers lay at the Higginson wharves—lake carriers, both, of the Higginson line. A logging railroad ran back some twenty miles into the forest; it ran over Higginson land to Higginson land, to bring what logs the little river could not bring—for the Higginson property extended far to north, south and eastward. There was, in fact, one rich man in the little city—one man who had done what he could to keep the railroad busy, to keep the harbour dredged, to keep the streets in better condition, to make Wauchung a real city, awake, energetic, proud—one man who represented Wauchung to the outside world: Mr. Higginson.
An elderly gentleman he was, a man who had passed the fighting age, who would have stopped to rest any time these last six or eight years if the business had permitted it; but it had stood until recently that the one man in Wauchung who did not take his vacation every year was Mr. Higginson. As it often falls out, however, one of his severest misfortunes had brought its blessing. For five years and more he had looked for a man, for the man, whom he could trust to take up the burden that was beginning to weigh so heavily; and for five years he had failed. He liked young Crosman, the head clerk in the office; but Crosman, though welcome enough at the house as Mamie Higginson's regular caller, hardly showed administrative qualities—his limitations were marked. And so the search had gone on: he had tried them, young “men and middle-aged men”—and he had found that all of them wanted money, and none of them wanted work. And what he had to offer was work, little else—hard work, work for head and hands, much thinking of the business, little thinking of self: the spirit that would live for the business, that would take its pride in the quality of the Higginson work, that would strive, as he had striven, to make the name of Higginson a synonym for honest work, work done on time, work done a little better than the contract demanded. Where could he find a man like this?
And then, after five years, through a shipwreck of all occurrences, he had found him. He knew him at once, as he had thought he should. Looking down from the heights of character and accomplishments, on a world of little persons, foolish persons, earnest, weak persons, dishonest persons, pompous, empty persons—all the sorts that go to make up a man's world, and nearly all that he is likely to see, unfortunately, from the heights—looking out and down and all about, he had seen a young man's head and shoulders climbing up above the rabble. The young man had not yet climbed very high; but he was climbing, and that was enough. So Mr. Higginson had come to think more lightly of the rheumatism, the failing eyes, the many signs of age that had been brought sharply to his notice by that shock and exposure on the west coast.
At the time of this chapter, Mr. Higginson and Halloran were seated in the office—Halloran before his desk, Mr. Higginson beside it—looking at a typewritten letter or statement. Twenty-four hours earlier Mr. William H. Babcock, of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company, had taken the train for Chicago, leaving this document behind him; and now the time had come to answer it.
This was the culmination of a long series of letters and interviews. The beginning had been when this same Mr. Babcock had endeavoured to buy the Wauchung mills in the interest of Mr. Bigelow. It seemed that Mr. Bigelow was about to enter the lumber business. His genius for combination, for exploitation, was to be given a new direction. Kentucky Coal, New Freighters, Northwest Chicago, all his various interests were prospering, thanks to the name of Bigelow, and now the lumber business was to be vitalized, to be vivified. Just how it was to be done, or what was to be done, was not known; that secret was kept close in the Bigelow office. Each newspaper published its own version, to be believed or disbelieved at the discretion of the reader. All Mr. Higginson knew was that the Bigelow firm could never buy him out, that he had not spent his years in building up a business for the benefit of Mr. Bigelow. The business was his life, and he meant to keep it for himself and his family and his legitimate successors. So the first refusal had been a simple matter—a plain, emphatic no had sufficed.
Then for a time there had been silence; until one day Halloran learned that the Pewaukoe Lumber Company, twenty-odd miles up the shore, had succumbed to the blandishments of the low-voiced Mr. Babcock, and had sold out mills, standing timber and all. It had not been a prosperous company, thanks to the shiftless management of the children of the original owner; but there was no reason why it should not do well in good hands. There was no question now that, whatever he meant to do next, Mr. Bigelow had a footing in the lumber trade, and Halloran had been watching him closely.
The document on the desk was a statement of the “understanding” or secret agreement that was henceforth to be law among the lumber producers of Lake Michigan. It had been presented and accompanied with much confidential talk from Mr. Babcock—all tending to show that the lumbermen, with the sole exception of Mr. Higginson, were already united to forward this agreement, that the business would be organized as never before, that great economies would be brought about in the carrying side of the trade, that the strain of competition' would be avoided, that prices would be maintained at a somewhat higher figure (a main point, this) under penalty of fines, that—much more low talk and friendly disinterested confidences. For their interests were identical, said Mr. Babcock; and there was room for them all. Efficiency was the keyword—efficiency, productiveness, economy, identity of interests, good prices. And lastly there had been friendly, almost deferential intimations that G. Hyde Bigelow & Company held the key to the situation, that the combination was already a fact, and that a firm which might decide to stay out must take the consequences.
Simplified, the whole matter came to this: Within the combination, prosperity in plenty, but always subject to the guiding judgment of G. Hyde Bigelow, hence a certain loss of identity and of control to self-respecting heads of companies; without the combination, a fight to a finish against the combined power and momentum of Bigelow & Company and the “Lumber Trust.” Just how great was this momentum no one exactly knew: but Bigelow was a magic name, no doubt of it.
“You have gone over it, have you, Mr. Halloran?” said Mr. Higginson.
His voice was disturbed and his expression showed worry and trouble. For a year Mr. Higginson had been changing, very slightly but none the less perceptibly to one as close to him, day after day, as Halloran was. Until he had assured himself that his assistant was able to take up the burden, he had kept up; but after that moment he had seemed, in a measure, to let go. On routine matters he was as strong as ever, but his mind refused to work automatically through new problems; there were sometimes gaps in his reasoning that he found it difficult to bridge over, and this worried him. So it had come about that a tacit agreement existed between the older man and the younger, that in questions where vigour was needed, of body or mind, the younger man should take the lead; and Mr. Higginson mildly deceived himself by giving more attention than formerly to routine matters and trivial details. It was Halloran, therefore, who had spent the better part of a night thinking out this question, whether to yield or fight. And it was Mr. Higginson, naturally enough, who had put the question:
“You have gone over it, have you, Mr. Halloran?”
“Yes. The Bigelow part of it is what I like least. I am not sure that he is just the man you would want to stand responsible for this business, and therefore he certainly is not the man to take charge of all the companies together—and that is pretty nearly what this paper means.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, he isn't solid. He's been lucky, and just now he's on the top of the wave. But his interests and investments are spread out so wide that a run of bad luck might upset him. I don't know that it would, but it might. And then I have seen a little of him.”
“You know him personally?”
“Yes. I cut his grass for two summers in Evanston, and did odd jobs for him.”
Mr. Higginson pondered, and Halloran went on: “On the other hand, his resources are large, and if we decide to stand out it may mean a long, hard fight. It might be harder than we think.”
Mr. Higginson was still thinking hard, forcing his mind to take up one phase of the question after another; and the worried expression, so frequently on his face nowadays, was more noticeable than ever. Finally he said:
“Then you are in favour of declining to join the combination?”
This was the direct question that Halloran had partly foreseen. He hesitated, marking at random with a pencil while his thoughts came fast. At this moment he saw more clearly than he had seen at any time during the night what a refusal would mean. Wealthy as Mr. Higginson was, his wealth lay in the lumber lands, the logging railroad, in the mills and the steamers, and in Wauchung property; to a certain extent the whole town of Wauchung had grown up around Mr. Higginson and was directly or indirectly dependent upon him; and all these interests, hanging as they did on the lumber business, must suffer when this business was attacked. But he caught himself—if he ran on into this way of thinking he was lost.
“Yes,” he replied; “I think we had better decline.”
Mr. Higginson arose.
“I will leave the letter to you,” he said; and then went out with a face that seemed to express downright-dread. Honest old gentleman, he had thought to take a rest; and instead he found himself facing the hardest fight of his career.
Halloran took up his pen and made the attitude of Higginson & Company plain in three lines.
In the parlour of the Higginson home, one evening shortly after the incident of the last chapter, sat Mrs. Higginson and her daughter, with expressions hardly significant of an intense joy in life. In the library, talking earnestly behind closed doors, were Mr. Higginson and Halloran.
“Well, Mr. Halloran, what is it?” had begun the head of the firm.
“The fight is on. I got the first word of it to-day.”
Mr. Higginson bowed slightly and waited.
“Bigelow has cut the price down below cost.”
It took a moment for the older man to grasp the meaning of this.
“Below cost?” he repeated.
“Yes; it's going to be a question of endurance.”
“But we have some large orders on hand. They will keep us busy for awhile. How does the Carroll & Condit lumber stand?”
“It's about half cut out.”
“You can go ahead with it, then, for this week. And after that the Michigan City contract will keep us busy for awhile.”
“The Carroll & Condit business is what brought me here to-night. Here is a letter from them.” Halloran laid it on the table. “They offer us a chance to meet the new price before they place their order elsewhere.”
Gradually the meaning of Halloran's words had been sinking into Mr. Higginson's mind; the relations of cause and effect had been clearing before him. He looked the letter over silently, twice, three times.
“I—I can hardly believe this———” He saw that this was useless talk and he stopped. It had been a verbal order from Carroll, a man whom he had reason to hold as the soul of honour; the price had been stated and agreed to, precisely as for twenty years back; everything had been satisfactory. Good Mr. Higginson had been the victim of a delusion. After half a century of struggle he had allowed himself to believe that the fight was about over, that his personal achievement meant something; that he could stand securely on the heights. He had forgotten that Business is Business, that Time is Money and Money Talks; he had forgotten that the glorious old world was spinning along, as heedless as ever, after the ever-receding glitter, and that there could be no stopping until the last great stop should be reached.
“From what I can gather,” said Halloran, “they mean to fight us all along the line. The Michigan City contract, I think, is good. We have it down in black and white, and we can make the delivery in our own steamers; but we should have to use the railroads for most of our other orders, and I'm afraid we can't do it.” He disliked this hammering one trouble after another into the old gentleman's aching head, but it had to be done. “I'm quite sure that Bigelow has influence with the railroads, and of course he will use it.”
Mr. Higginson was thinking—thinking.
“How much—” he was still thinking, desperately raking his facts together and facing what seemed like chaos—“how much is this going to cost us, Mr. Halloran?”
Halloran shook his head.
“It's too early to tell. He must show his hand before we can plan our game. He's beginning now, and before he gets through, by ———, we'll smash him. We'll make him feel like a whipped coach-dog every time he passes a lumber pile.” Halloran was getting so excited he had to get up and pace the carpet. “I know the man; I know his meanness and his vanity. I've worked for him, and I've seen him off his guard, and I know his insolence. Before we get through with him he'll wish he had gone into a bucket-shop, where he belongs, and stayed there, the damned old bloated frog of a tin-horn gambler. Let him wreck his Kentucky Coal and his New Freighters all he pleases, but he'll get a bellyful if he tries to wreck the lumber business.”
He stopped short, looked around at the dark, olive-tinted walls, at the stately row of books in their morocco and calf and yellow and red and gold; looked at the rich carpet and the restful chairs and at the soft light of the polished student-lamp; looked last at Mr. Higginson—and felt a cold sweat breaking out all over his body. What had he said?
Somewhere in Halloran's make-up, deep-hidden beneath the laborious years of work and study, lay a well, a spouting, roaring geyser of profanity. It had come into the world with him; it had been richly fed during his rough, knockabout boyhood; and now, in spite of the weights he had put on it, a year or two of Michigan lumbermen had been enough to prime it.
Mr. Higginson was still thinking—thinking. The facts were before him now; at last he had penetrated to them and brought them together. And he was facing them—meeting them squarely without flinching. Quietly he sat, one elbow on the green-topped table, his hand shading his eyes; and the lamplight fell gently on his head. He was facing the question of himself, of his ability to conduct his own business; and another question, granting that he was unable, whether he could, in his best judgment, place everything he had in the world—his business, his family, himself—in the hands of this man and bid him Godspeed in his work. So he sat thinking—thinking; and Halloran, a little abashed, but angry still, dropped into a chair and waited. At last the old gentleman spoke—in a low, changed voice. “Mr. Halloran, I have not been well lately; and I think it best—to tell you that—for the present the business is in your hands. I will stay here and advise with you, but—I do not wish you to feel hampered by my presence in carrying on this fight. I am laying a heavy responsibility on you—but I think—I trust you will be equal to it.”
Mr. Higginson's part of the fight was over; and he had won.
Mrs. Higginson was playing clock at the centre-table. She was a wiry little woman, capable of great exertion and showing remarkable endurance when set on some purpose, such as a shopping trip to Chicago; but suffering at other times from languor, and low spirits, and in constant need of medical attendance.
She had never been able to understand why “Mr. H.” should insist on burying himself in the lumber business, when he was plenty rich enough to sell out and take her and her daughter forth from the slumberous quiet of Wauchung into the stir of the world. Such stupidity, such meanness of ideals (to pass over the injustice to herself—she was nothing; she didn't count) was out of her ken. And in the second place, her heart had been set for three seasons on a trip to Hot Springs; and even if Mr. H.'s plainness of character were to hold his interests in Wauchung in spite of her known desires, he certainly owed it to her to give her an outing for a few months. She had borne a great deal for him—but never mind. Doctor Brown would sympathize with her, anyway—would bring her medicine every day if she were but so much as to drop a hint.
Mamie had been trying to read a novel; but being herself the meek centre of a tremendous little drama, she found it difficult to focus her attention.
“Ma,” she said, after a time, “don't you think pa looks a little run down?” This was a euphemism; there was no question that Mr. Higginson was looking very bad indeed.
“A little, perhaps,” replied her mother. At that moment, the three-o'clock pile being prematurely completed, she gave up “Clock” in disgust and shuffled her cards for the thirteen game.
Presently she said, “My head has ached hard all day.”
This was encouraging. Mamie took up her book again; but not for long.
“Do you suppose he is worrying about the business, ma? He and Mr. Halloran are working almost every night now.”
“I suppose so,” Mrs. Higginson replied. “It would have been better for him if he had taken my advice five years ago and retired. Your father has no time to think of us, my dear.”
Mamie felt some injustice in this and would have dropped the subject had not her mother, roused to it, pushed on.
“He says himself that Mr. Halloran has shown himself able to run the business, and yet he will not go away even for a week. I think if we could only get him off for a short time he would want to stay, once he had made up his mind to it.” At this moment the library door opened and the two men could be heard in the hall. Mrs. Higginson's face brightened. “Play something for me, my dear,” she said.
“Oh, no, ma. They are just coming in here.”
“Who? Are they? Play the march Mr. Halloran likes so much.”
Mamie went obediently to the piano and was crashing out the opening chords when the two men reached the parlour door. Mrs. Higginson rose and extended her hand with a bright smile. Mamie showed signs of stopping, but Halloran nodded to her to go on, and dropped into a chair. Mrs. Higginson came over and sat down by him, leaving her cards in disorder on the table.
“I had just asked Mamie to play for me before you came in,” she said, pitching her voice somewhat above the noise of the march. “I always like to hear her play when I have one of my headaches. It seems to make me forget myself for a little while. And I really think she plays very well.”
Yes; Halloran thought so, too.
“I am not one of your cultivated musicians, but I know what I like. And that is all anybody can know, I guess. Only most people aren't honest enough to say so. I have had a severe headache all day. It was in the back of my head, just where I had one last Thursday; and if I hadn't happened to have some of the pills left over that Doctor Brown brought for me the last time, I don't know what I should have done. One does hate so to give up. I have always said to my husband: 'No, Mr. H., I will not give up; I will not go to bed and acknowledge myself an invalid. Thank goodness I have pride enough left for that.'” Here the doorbell claimed her attention for a moment. “Well, here is Harry Crosman. He is such a good boy, we are all so fond of him. And then for a long time”—very confidentially, this—“he was really almost the only company there was for Mamie, and we were glad to have him drop around on her account. The people in Wauchung are so—so—well, I'm sure you understand. It was pleasant for the dear girl. I don't suppose he is ever going to astonish the world, but we are always glad to see him. Good-evening, Harry.”
At this greeting the newcomer took a chair, and found himself just in time to hear Mrs. Higgin-son, keyed up to extra exertions by the music and the company, bring all her artillery to bear on her husband.
“Now, Mr. Halloran, I'm just going to appeal to you if Mr. H. isn't working too hard. Don't you think it is time he took a little vacation———”
She stopped short, for the long-suffering Mr. H. had turned on her with downright impatience.
“Don't let me hear any more of that talk,” he said sharply; then, almost before the last word was out of his mouth, he abruptly excused himself and left the room.
He left silence behind him, and some little consternation; and Halloran, seeing on Mrs. Higgin-son's face the signs of a storm, excused himself, too, leaving Crosman to weather it as best he might.